where love resides
by joiedevivre2011
Summary: A one-shot from Maura's POV inspired by the Sara Bareilles song 1000 Times. It's a sad, but also kind of hopeful internal monologue. Give it a chance, even if you've heard the song.


This evening as I tried to find inspiration for other fics (mostly The Nanny), I started listening to the newest Sara Bareilles album and when I heard the song "1000 Times," suddenly words were coming and kept coming and even through the interruptions from real life people, they kept coming.

I hope you enjoy this. Please let me know what you think.

Disclaimer: This song doesn't belong to me. These characters don't belong to me. I'm a poor soon-to-be grad student, so please don't sue me.

* * *

_Back of the room  
__Looking at you  
__Counting the steps  
__Between us_

_A hundred and five  
__Little blades in a line  
__From your skin to mine  
__And I feel it_

When you walk into a room, everything about you commands attention. The way your dark hair, wavy and wild, frames your face, falls over your shoulders naturally, but as if placed exactly there on purpose. You rise to your full height, tall and proud. Confidence rolls off your body in waves, challenging any person in your presence to contradict you.

This morning we - the homicide team, Cavanaugh, myself - are gathered in a conference room to be briefed on a case we just received. As usual you take the lead, a natural tendency for you. I stand in the back of the room watching you speak passionately and intelligently about the current plan of attack to find the suspect. I observe carefully, seeing the way you glance around the room to each and every person there, everyone except me.

As you are now, I want the room to disappear, the conference table, the chairs, its current inhabitants. Everything. I mentally count the steps it would take to reach you, how many steps in a normal stride, how many if I were running to you. Just so I could press my lips to yours, taste the distinct flavor of coffee and cherry chapstick on them. Just so I could throw my arms around your neck and drown myself in the love that has been growing inside of me since the moment we first touched.

The way you carry yourself in this situation makes me feel more than I ever thought possible. It terrifies me. It excites me. I never want this to end.

_Eyes on the ground  
__But I can't look up now  
__Don't wanna give it away  
__My secret_

_In another life  
__My teeth and tongue  
__Would speak aloud what until now  
__I've only sung_

Finally your eyes meet mine and I can't keep the contact you always aspire to share with me. My eyes are forced to gaze downward; it's too overwhelming for me in this moment. I know that the way I look at you in times like these reveals everything I feel about you. If you're aware of my feelings, you never show it. If you're consciously aware of your own, you never show it. You keep the silence that I have begun to fear.

If our circumstances were different, if you weren't involved with Casey, if you weren't vehemently insistent upon who you are and who you will always be, I would open my mouth and let the words come tumbling out. I would tell you how when your hand grazes my forearm in passing, delicate shivers run along my spine, how I want your touch to last for eternity, even beyond death. Scientifically impossible, but my heart begs to differ.

'_Cause I would die to make you mine  
__Bleed me dry each and every time  
__I don't mind, no, I don't mind it  
__I would come back 1000 times_

_You can make me wait forever  
__Push me away and tell me never  
__I don't mind, no, I don't mind it  
__I would come back 1000 times  
__Hey hey_

No matter how much you push and pull, tug at my feelings kept hidden deep inside my heart, I would take every movement, every second just because it comes from you. They would be cherished, kept just as close to my heart as you'll always remain. Every lover I've ever had, if I were to endure the heartache they've caused collectively, it would never amount to how much loving you breaks me inside to a thousand pieces over and over again.

And still I would love you. I could never stop, regardless of how painful it becomes. You make me feel a purpose in life I never knew I silently craved.

One day, when you finally wake up and the reality of your feelings brings you down to your knees, I know you will shut yourself off, close your heart to this long-awaited epiphany. You can tell me that you do not feel the same, that you never will, that you never have, but I will know the truth.

You love me as foolishly and as wholeheartedly as I do you.

Yet when you push me away, I will not cease. I will be here standing, even at the back of the room, loving you, steadfast and truer than ever.

_Kiss me goodnight  
__Like a good friend might  
__I'll do the same  
__But won't mean it_

'_Cause love is a cage  
__These words on a page  
__Carry the pain  
__They don't free it_

_In another life  
__I wouldn't need to  
__Console myself  
__As I resign to release you_

On the nights when you leave me alone in the house that you have helped me make a home, after laughter, after tears, secrets shared, you always place a light, chaste kiss to the corner of my lips. Never failing. You are a creature of habit. I don't know if our relationship is normal, I've never had a friend in my life like you. I know, no matter what happens in the future, our friendship will be as strong as it is in this moment. But in these moments, with your soft lips upon even just a small part of my own, I will pretend that all friends do this, that it only means we care.

You have ruined me for anyone else; I will never be able to love the same as I love you. It will be painful, I will feel trapped inside my own personal hell, perpetually on the verge of the greatest pleasure I could ever know, yet never having a taste of it. Words could flow from my mind, down my neck, shoulder, arm, to my fingers holding a pen lightly between my fingers, right to the paper in front of me. I could confess every single word to you in a beautifully written letter. Still, never knowing the return of love will etch the pain inside my soul. An invisible tattoo on everything I am and everything I will be.

'_Cause I would die to make you mine  
__Bleed me dry each and every time  
__I don't mind, no, I don't mind it  
__I would come back 1000 times_

_You can make me wait forever  
__Push me away and tell me never  
__I don't mind, no, I don't mind it  
__I would come back 1000 times_

For every time death has come knocking at my door, at yours, at ours together, I would welcome every one of them if it meant spending every day being able to love you openly and fully. My love could consume every single piece of who I am; I would still run to you, begging for more. It could never be enough to satisfy my longing for you.

Tell me one day you could feel the same; one day, after you've found peace with the guilt inside of you for loving me as I am, as a woman, as your best friend. Even if it took the rest of our lives, I would wait for those words to fall from your sweet lips. Or never, tell me we could never be, my love for you will never fade.

_Again again  
__I let it go, let it go  
__Cover my mouth  
__Don't let a single word slip out_

_Wouldn't wanna tell you, no  
__Tell you, no  
__Nothing could be worse  
__Than the risk of  
__Losing what I don't have now_

_And we could buy the minute, though  
__Is it so bad if I wanna cry out_

Your raspy voice speaking my name brings me crashing back into this conference room with you. The only action I'm capable of now is meeting your eyes and I brush away every thought I've had since this little rendez-vous began, every declaration of love I've been making in my mind, in my body for you. My fingers rise to my lips, sliding over them in a gesture that I've developed in order to keep the amorous vows locked inside me. A habit you have come to expect, though the true meaning behind it remains unknown to you.

I remain silent in fear of losing the possibility of what could be, what might be, should I ever find the courage to tell you my heart, my body, and my mind belong only to you. It long ago occured to me that losing you in every capacity I have now would destroy me entirely. A fate far worse than death, I am more than certain.

When the corner of your lips tugs into a small smile as your gaze finally breaks from mine and moves to others in the room, I allow myself a brief moment to imagine what could be. A brief moment where I can cross the room in a flash and show you everything I know we truly are and more. Let everyone bear witness to a blinding love and attraction that we seem to think only exist in the finest literature and fairy tales. Then reality forces the moment to pass, leaving me with the same yearning I've always had.

_That I would die to make you mine  
__Bleed me dry almost every time  
__But I don't mind, no, I don't mind it  
__I would come back 1000 times_

_Make me wait forever  
__Push me away and tell me never  
__I don't mind, no I don't mind it  
__I would come back 1000 times  
__I would come back 1000 times  
__I would come back 1000 times_

For I am always moments away from confession, from revealing the truth of it all, when your dark eyes bore into mine.

Deep within them I find hope, a feeling to which I cling desperately, despite its intangibility and lack of connection to my comforting logic.

Hope.

Newly defined to be where our love resides and where I repeatedly return until one day, those steps between belong to us and we can force them to no longer exist.


End file.
